The Malik Report

If you were wondering why Gordie Howe was attending the Sharks-Canucks game on Thursday, he was highly likely to be attending the game as a guest of the Vancouver Giants' ownership (Howe was once a part-owner of the team), and the Vancouver Province's Ian Austin reports that Vancouver happens to be hosting a ScotiaBank Pro-Am to help raise funds for Alzheimers' research:

Hockey fans are always quick to point out when one of those NHL wingers blows a scoring chance — in their minds, of course, they woulda buried it. So Saturday, thanks to the Scotiabank Hockey for Alzheimer’s Tournament, I got to find out just how it feels to get one of those great National Hockey League passes — actually, two, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The teams in the tourney get to draft bonafide NHL stars, and with the fifth pick The Province Sports “Go Big” team landed Dave Babych — a member of hockey’s royalty of yesteryear as the No. 2 overall pick back in 1980.

Along with NHL fourth-rounder Larry Melnyk, it gave the hard-partying Province team a fighting chance in an early-morning game.

“No puking on the ice — there’s a bucket at the end of the bench,” said one helpful team member.

“Does anyone have a morphine drip for my headache?” moaned another.

Continued, and the tournament's website is here. Scotiabank happens to hold Pro-Ams across Canada--in Vancouver, in Calgary (this year; it alternates between Calgary and Edmonton from year to year) and in Toronto--from November to April, and Howe and Alzheimer's research are its cruxes. He was a passionate advocate for Alzheimers research when he was better, and he remains inolved in the tournaments despite battling dementia himself. I don't know what to add to that but it's pretty special.

The Red Wings headed back to Metro Detroit ahead of a windy, stormy Sunday, having dropped their sixth straight game, a 5-4 shootout loss to the New York Islanders, and I have good news for Red Wings fans everywhere:

The team won't play for two days.

I also have some bad news: starting on Tuesday, the Wings will play 4 games over the course of six nights--with three straight scheduled to take place at Joe Louis Arena--and they play seven more times this month, with 4 of 7 taking place at the Joe.

With 21 games down, sporting a 9-5-and-7 record (9-and-13? Really?), having not won in 2 weeks and owning an 0-1-2 (OT losses) and 3 (shootout losses) record of late, I can't deny that the results have either become borderline comical...

Even the Grand Rapids Griffins "were due" for a loss, but I'm sure they're not happy about the way Saturday night's 4-3 loss to the Chicago Wolves transpired. The Griffins rallied from a 3-1 deficit only to surrender a shorthanded goal 5:01 into the 3rd period--their second "shorty" of the night--and they couldn't overcome their errors. The Griffins website's recap recounts the game's events:

Capgeek reported that the Red Wings brought Luke Glendening up as a cap-exempt "roster emergency" player (as Daniel Alfredsson couldn't play on Long Island due to a groin injury), so they had to send #41 back down after the game, at least on paper. Per the Wings' PR department, even if he's going to crash on a Wings teammate's couch or in their guest bedroom tonight, Glendening's rights have been sent back up I-96:

Glendening, 24, has skated in nine games with the Red Wings this season, recording four penalty minutes and averaging 9:50 of ice time, including a season-high 12:54 in Detroit’s 4-3 shootout loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday. The Grand Rapids, Mich., native has also played nine games for the Griffins this season, registering six points (3-3-6) and 14 penalty minutes. In 60 career games with the Griffins, he has 32 points (11-21-32), a plus-18 rating and 64 penalty minutes. He also spent four seasons (2008-12) at the University of Michigan, tallying 70 points (31-39-70) in 165 collegiate games.

Well, yesterday evening it was all about how Howard was so subpar, and tonight I'm sure it's going to be all about Babcock and Holland...

But the Red Wings' 6-5 SO loss to the New York Islanders, despite mostly superb and in spite of sometimes shaky goaltending from Jonas Gustavsson, serves as the Wings' sixth straight game going "winless," it's the second night in a row that Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Bertuzzi were "minuses" (-1 instead of -2 tonight), it's the second night in a row where the Wings didn't score the game's first goal, and then took and surrendered 2 one-goal leads, it's a goal where the Wings' special teams were...actually, they were frickin' superb...And the Wings SOMEHOW tied the game despite being out-shot FIFTEEN TO FOUR in the 3rd period and SIX TO ONE in OT...

What's going on here? Aside from a devastating inability to win shootouts?

Well *#$%@&, despite the fact that the Wings earned a point, isn't there enough blame to go around?

I've been trying to figure out whether Sergei Fedorov is actually coming out of retirement to play for CSKA Moscow or the KHL--as a general manager-turned player at 43 years of age--or whether his signign of a one-year, KHL-league-minimum with the team was a publicity stunt.

First, Fedorov was supposed to return to the team in the middle of October, but it didn't happen. He kept practicing with the team, and the Russian press speculated that Fedorov would finally return to action when CSKA Moscow and SKA St. Petersburg, the two Red Army Sports Clubs, tangled at the end of October. That didn't happen, and as CSKA's half-dozen injured players began to return from their injuries, Fedorov kept practicing with the team, but coverage of his activities waned, and a few pundits wondered whether Fedorov was waiting until the KHL resumed play after taking a break for the Euro Hockey Tour's Karjala Cup.

Well, the Karjala Cup came and went, and Fedorov has yet to do more than practice with his team. His playing status has become murkier and murkier, with the Russian press simply turning away from the story, but Sportbox.ru's Alexey Shevchenko managed to get Fedorov to speak on the record about his comeback, and while my Google and Promt-translated Russian isn't spectacular (two online translators are better than one), I believe that Fedorov dodged the question...Mostly...

Updated 8x at 2:34 PM: The Detroit Red Wings need to rebound from their latest home setback against the Washington Capitals when they tangle with the New York Islanders this evening (7 PM EST, FSD/MSG Plus/97.1 FM), and the Islanders report that the Wings won't have to battle Thomas Vanek this evening, but they will have to solve an alumnus of a sort:

#Isles forward @T_Vanek26 is on the ice for morning skate. Game status update to come shortly from HC Jack Capuano.

...

Capuano: Nabokov in goal tonight. Same #Isles skaters as the last game meaning Vanek remains day-to-day.

NHL.com's John Kreiser reminds us why the Wings needed to get away from Joe Louis Arena so very desperately...

A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., Glendening made his NHL debut with the Red Wings on Oct. 12 vs. Philadelphia. In eight games with Detroit, he has recorded eight shots on goal and averaged 9:28 of ice time. The 24-year-old forward has also skated in nine games with the Griffins this season, notching six points (3-3-6), a plus-6 rating and 14 penalty minutes.Last season, he tallied 21 points (14-7-21) in 28 games with the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye before being recalled by his hometown Griffins, where he helped lead the team to their first-ever AHL championship. He registered 26 points (8-18-26) in 51 regular-season games and 16 points (6-10-16) in 24 postseason contests.

I would really love to be more eloquent or offer a better, "Let's rally the troops, it's gonna be okay" message this morning, but the Red Wings' fifth loss in five games (though the Wings are 1-and-4) and seventh straight home loss have me as frustrated as anyone else with the Red Wings' inability or unwillingness to close out opponents.

And at the 20-game mark, 9-5-and-6 plain old isn't good enough, regardless of the team's personnel changes, injuries or its status as a "young team" by Detroit standards.

About The Malik Report

The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.